Pompano family terrorized by armed home invaders

Authorities say a family of three who had just moved into an apartment on Southeast 10th Avenue got an unwelcome surprise when they opened the door to three men who ransacked the residence while demanding information about drugs, guns and a safe.

Authorities say a family of three who had just moved into an apartment on Southeast 10th Avenue got an unwelcome surprise when they opened the door to three men who ransacked the residence while demanding information about drugs, guns and a safe.

Hours after moving into an apartment on Southeast 10th Avenue, Scot Mills, along with his wife and son, had just begun to unpack when they heard a knock at the door.

It wasn’t the Welcome Wagon.

When the door was opened, three armed men burst in and began ransacking the residence while demanding information about drugs, guns and a safe, authorities said.

“There’s nothing here, man, I swear,” Mills, 51, can be heard telling the trio of intruders on a surveillance video released Monday by the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

“I thought that I was going to get my head shot because there was nothing here,” Mills said describing the 15 minutes of terror that he, his wife, Danielle, and son Christopher, 20, endured.

“I just kept saying, ‘Take what you want. But I’m telling you, you got the wrong place,’” said Mills. “But they just kept saying they wanted the coke, the guns or the money.”

The incident began when Christopher returned to the apartment from a trip to the corner store about 10:45 p.m. on Feb. 1. He heard a knock on the door, saw no one when he looked through the peephole, and then unwittingly opened the door to the thieves.

One of the men found Danielle Mills sleeping in the bedroom and awoke her with a blow to the head, Mills said. The family was forced to the floor at gunpoint

The three men then began combing the residence for valuables. One man seemed to spend several minutes going through the refrigerator.

There was a safe — door open and empty — that was left in the apartment when the family moved in, Mills said. The intruders seemed to realize that it may have been the previous tenant of the unit they were looking for.

“But one guy said, ‘I’m not leaving here with nothing,’” Mills said.

After tearing the apartment apart, the men ran out with an Xbox 360, a cellphone, $900 in cash and a $1,000 money order, said Mills, who works in a law office and plays guitar. He is undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer.

“Basically, that was our rent for the next month and our living funds,” he said.

One of the thieves wore a black hooded jacket, tan pants and a black and white bandanna over his face, according to deputies.

The second suspect had on a brown and gray plaid shirt, tan pants and a black knit cap. The third suspect wore a black long-sleeve shirt, gray jeans with black patches and a red shirt around his face.